Sign of the times as drinkers swap champagne for sparklers

A man sprays cava on Dec. 22 in front of a lottery office where the winning number of Spain’s Christmas lottery named “El Gordo” (Fat One) was sold in Barcelona.

Photo: AFP

Times are tough, but everyone still needs a little sparkle in their lives.

That is the message from beverage industry data that indicate champagne sales are going flat, while more affordable upstarts like prosecco continue to fizz thanks to a trend toward everyday indulgence.

For rap stars and Premier League soccer players, it still has to be premium Cristal. However, for many ordinary consumers, even in France, cava will do just as well to get the party started.

“Champagne was dominant 10 to 15 years ago, but the world has changed,” said Jean-Philippe Perrouty, director of drinks analyst Wine Intelligence.

“In a nutshell, Champagne now has at least two very strong competitors,” he said.

Although exports of champagne, which can only be produced in the region of the same name in northern France, grew slightly by 3.4 percent in value terms last year, the number of bottles sent overseas fell 2.8 percent.

That performance is in marked contrast to the much stronger upward trend in demand for sparkling wine as a whole, illustrated by a 34 percent surge in the value of exports of prosecco and other premium Italian sparklers in the first nine months of last year.

Champagne is also lagging behind the strong export growth of still wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy and upmarket French spirits Armagnac and Cognac.

Even on home turf, the king of sparkling wine is looking ready to abdicate its crown, with sales value down 5 percent in a market in which foreign competitors are making inroads.

France, Spain and Italy supply 80 percent of the world’s sparkling wine, but demand has been buffeted by economic headwinds in the traditional European and US markets.

“The prolonged economic downturn in these economies has played havoc with demand for sparkling wines, channeling consumers downmarket,” food and agribusiness analysts at Rabobank said in their quarterly wine report, published this month.

Searching for lower-priced bubbly, consumers have turned to prosecco, mostly made in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, and to cava, the bulk of which is produced in Catalonia.

Cavas generally retail for under 8 euros (US$10.75) a bottle in most European markets, while prosecco ranges from 5 euros to 15 euros, with only its top wines coming close to the price of entry-level champagne.

“Prosecco and cava are seen as affordable luxuries. They have turned sparkling wine into informal, more frequent consumption, but they are also able to compete with Champagne at the fringes of the Champagne market,” Perrouty said.

Freixenet produces 200 million bottles a year — not far off the 309 million bottles shipped by the entire Champagne region last year, and 80 percent is sold on export.

It is a market leader in the UK and in France, and is the joint third-biggest selling brand of non-champagne sparkling, which accounts for 70 percent of the market.

“It’s in our DNA to push into new markets,” said Philippe Laqueche, general manager of the cava producer’s French subsidiary Yvon Mau. “We’re recruiting new consumers and making the market grow.”

This same trend has taken root in the US with prosecco’s relatively low alcohol level helping fuel more “everyday” consumption of sparkling wines.

The thirst for bubbly has encouraged vintners to search out new terroirs, from Moet Hennessy’s new Chandon wineries in China and India to smaller start-ups in the south of England.